Microsoft wants to help you ditch Gmail for Outlook.com with new migration service

Microsoft has unveiled a new migrating service today that helps Gmail users make the move to Microsoft’s Outlook.com. Microsoft cites a growing frustration with consumers that use Gmail and is offering this new tool to help make things better.

“Today, we are announcing a new service that makes it easier than ever to import your Gmail account to Outlook.com. This will be rolling out to everyone over the coming weeks, so if you don’t have access to it yet, check back soon,” Microsoft stated in an official blog post.

Microsoft cited a research study by Ipsos, which found that one in four consumers would switch email providers if it was easy to do so. The study also found that 70% of consumers did not want ads interfering with their email experience, 69% wanted advanced spam filters, 67% wanted an easy to understand user interface, and 58% did not want the contents of their email scanned to serve ads.

To begin this migrating process, head over here and log in with your Outlook.com account. If you want all your mail from Gmail to be copied into a new set of subfolders, click Options and select that option, otherwise click Start. Afterwards, you will need to sign into Gmail and allow the tool access to your account. Once this is done, the tool will copy emails into your Outlook.com account and you’ll be navigated back to Outlook.com. No changes will occur on your Gmail account.

“Once you start the import process, we’ll send you step-by-step instructions on how to set up email auto-forwarding. This enables your Gmail account to forward all your future email to Outlook.com,” Microsoft adds.

The migration process takes place in the background, so you can continue using Outlook.com or even log out of the service during the process. You will receive an email once the process is complete.

Microsoft continues to tout Outlook.com as a service that is personal and designed for modern devices, as well as featuring a clean user experience and smart/powerful tools that let customers get things done faster.